A keen observer of French politics and regular contributor FigaroVox Maxime Tandonnet has published
Andre Tardieu.
The misunderstood (Perrin, 2019).
The spectacle which French policy is giving at this moment is not only distressing.
It is dishonorable.
For the past ten years, disasters have been linked: business, wave of Islamist attacks, yellow vests, Covid-19.
The result is a disoriented, fractured country, deprived of its historical, ethical and intellectual landmarks.
On this devastated landscape, on the ruins of French political consciousness, a nihilism takes root that takes multiple forms.
The sensational and the anecdotal have taken over public life.
Thus, France ignites about the removal of the Christmas tree in Bordeaux decided by the ecological mayor.
Classic: a beautiful scandal to cover up impotence.
Should we fall into the trap of the fir tree that hides the forest, transform a petty initiative into a state affair erasing everything else?
Talking about the Christmas tree or other trivialities makes it possible to hide the real issues that annoy, for example the bioethics law, the assisted reproduction without father reimbursed or the extension of the conditions of medical termination of pregnancy (until birth ), subject that does not interest anyone.
Talking about the Christmas tree or other trivialities makes it possible to hide the real issues that annoy, for example the bioethics law, the assisted reproduction without father reimbursed or the extension of the conditions of medical termination of pregnancy (until birth ), subject that does not interest anyone.
Another form of manipulation is the abuse of popularity polls.
A multitude of investigations appear simultaneously to make Mr. Philippe, the former Prime Minister, a kind of recourse (in case…).
He would be the “favorite candidate” on the “right”, but also the most popular personality in France.
Yet another survey presents him as "the embodiment of authority".
Why no one ever talks, ever, about the results of three years of government, the 80 km / h, the carbon tax and the chaos of the Yellow Vests, the failed pension reform and two months of blocking the country, the management of the Covid-19 crisis in all its aspects (masks, tests, etc.), etc?
How far is the clean slate and brain-feeding?
Politics is stifled by questions of people,
peopolization
.
The media world, and not just the tabloid press, is thus fascinated by the personal relations, real or supposed, between Mr. Sarkozy and Mr. Macron, the summer soap opera in Brégançon, the relationship between Ms. le Pen and her niece, M. Baroin's hesitations, or the head of state's moods.
Can politics be reduced to a daily spectacle - a poor spectacle?
The political scheming is obviously as old as the politics itself.
But today, unlike yesterday, it takes up all the space.
90% of the national policy, visible, mediatized, is now reduced to the question of the Elyos election or re-election and the maneuvers that surround it.
It explains the semi-right of presidential speech (for example on “separatism”).
It results in waves of debauchery.
The “right” rallies to the presidential camp, notwithstanding any political content but anticipating a re-election in 2022, are a blatant sign of low-end opportunism and contempt for voters.
The political scheming is obviously as old as the politics itself.
But today, unlike yesterday, it takes up all the space.
90% of national politics, visible, publicized, now boils down to the question of the Elyos election or re-election and the maneuvers that surround it
Moreover, the shipwreck of French politics in the Elyos neurosis presents itself as an authentic perversion of democracy.
How to qualify a political regime based entirely on the obsessive, narcissistic and idolatrous influence of an individual, crushing any notion of the common good and the collective destiny of the nation?
Certainly not a republic.
But who does this concern?
Everything takes place in an unprecedented climate of obsequiousness, conformism, mediocrity.
The debate on ideas and collective projects has disappeared, destroyed.
On the economy, institutions, Europe, borders, school and education, social issues, the slightest step outside the box exposes its author to fascization or Nazification.
The debate of ideas has been replaced by the search for angel gurus (from the far left to the far right included) and the waves of hysterical nothingness that shake the country every day at every point.
The CEVIPOF 2020 survey on the confidence of the French underlines that 79% of them have a negative view of politics.
As for chin strokes and martial postures, they are never used to cover up failures and renouncements.
No one talks about the flood of unemployment that hits young people, condemns a generation to idleness, the resulting poverty and exclusion, the vertiginous collapse of the school level (destruction of the bac), deficits and public debt, the level of compulsory levies which are breaking historical records, accelerated deindustrialisation, violence and delinquency which undermine the lives of the most fragile and most exposed French people (812,000 victims in 2018), the crisis migratory.
The CEVIPOF 2020 survey on the confidence of the French underlines that 79% of them have a negative view of politics.
Will it be necessary to reach 99% for the beginning of awareness to occur?
Because the stake is quite simply the survival of French democracy;
or rather, what's left of it.
